I probably should have given up on this series a few books back but there must have been a bit of sunk cost fallacy going on. And it’s a romance series – there’s always the possibility it could have bounced back to the early peaks.
More broadly/generally speaking, I have noticed in the past, that sometimes when an author takes a character that is a bit of a fan favorite and beloved, and finally gets to their novel, the novel is disappointing. I think that was definitely the case here with Hermes/Hecate. She was the fun, mysterious and enigmatic character in the beginning, the one who knew more than she should, could break into the most random and secure places without explanation and also gave off this carefree attitude. By this point, as readers, we have gotten less of the fun Hermes as the series went and her backstory was fine but too little too late. (This was an issue in two Sarah MacLean series, The Rules of Scoundrels and The Bareknuckle Bastards; I would also argue that Colin in the Bridgerton book series was a let down as the MMC).
One other challenge is that the series was too long, and too many of the couples introduced hardly seemed to matter down the line. We always came back to the Dimitriou family/sisters and the Kasios family but some of the other characters that ended up with their own novels basically disappeared afterwards. While things impacting the overall series happened in those novels (or in one or two cases, those novels had a decent central group of main characters), cutting this series down by 3-4 novels likely would have helped. Why did Apollo and Cassandra get a whole novel if they are barely in play for the rest of the series? I kept reading the series but was also ready for it to be done.
Those are a bit more pitfalls of a long running romance series. Now, let’s get into the challenges that are specific to the story this series was telling and this book. At one point, I was equally interested in the individual couples and the overarching plot; as the series progressed, the larger series plot started becoming more interesting than anything else until even it lost steam. And then we have the concluding novel which feels a bit anti-climatic. First off, the main love interests are lovers to enemies to lovers with a sapphic triad, and I just wasn’t interested or buying their attraction. In retrospect, I am not sure Roberts has ever really had couples with great banter but she can write engaging connections. But after the last few books all being about “oh so damaged people finding comfort in each other,” it’s just kind of tedious. While Hermes and Circe have past history, I just wasn’t that sold on them in the present, and I barely remembered Atalanta from the previous novels.
From the beginning of the series, Robert was showing the shady side of Olympus, and her ultimate message was very much that a corrupt system can’t be fixed from within, but must be taken down. Unfortunately, most of the series before this has been focused on the people in power, and while Robert showed how they were also harmed and trapped by a bad system, it ultimately feels like most of the leadership being former protagonists meant punches were pulled. In the end, the system is taken down but it felt so lackluster how it all went down.
Spoiler:
Since the rich and powerful simply leave with access to all their bank accounts, it kind of seems like Robert is having her cake and eating it, too.
